Superhero movies are in an interesting place right now, omnipresent and almost their own distinct genre in their own right like action movies or horror movies. What’s interesting is that movies like Logan, Deadpool, and Wonder Woman are now experimenting with the genre, testing it, seeing how far filmmakers can go with the rules and conventions before audiences rebel, and so far these experiments seem largely a success. But consider this: if someone made a Superman movie with a very different Superman, would the people still come out to watch it?

This story was born of a Twitter conversation between comic book writer Mark Millar and Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Now Millar is best known to the general audience as the man who gave us the comics that formed the basis of Wanted, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and Kick-Ass, but he’s also written about mainstream comic characters as the author of Civil War and Ultimate X-Men. He also wrote an Elseworlds tale called Superman: Red Son, which, if this exchange is to be believed, is an idea top of mind at Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment.

Did you hear WB pitching directors Red Son? Two diff pals in last 2 months. This truly is Putin's America.

Indeed. Red Son follows an alternative 20th century history where Kal-El crash lands in the Ukraine in 1938 instead of Kansas, thus making Superman a Soviet citizen growing up under communism during the early days of the Cold War. When Superman emerges in the 1950s, it’s as a Soviet icon who is the “Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact.” Quite the twist, and quite the statement if Warners were to decide to proceed with production on a Red Son movie because of current events and the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.

But how likely is it that Red Son might become a movie? Millar said he doesn’t know for sure, it’s just something that’s gotten back to him from his own sources. “Is this something they’re genuinely planning? I have no idea,” he told Den of Geeks. “I’ve got pals at Warner Bros but never discussed it with them. I think they’re just going through their back catalogue of big books and hoping to lure in good directors as opposed to any particular interest in developing Red Son.

“There’s always 50 conversations for every comic book movie that gets made and as far as I know this is something that is very much just at conversation stage,” he added.

Interestingly, Red Son was one of four Superman comics that Henry Cavill said influenced his performance as the Man of Steel in the film of the same name. Could you imagine Cavill in an Elseworlds story about a Soviet Superman? Would the general public be able to handle that? Who can say, but it would definitely be fun to see the mainstream advertising campaign launched for such a project. Imagine those billboards…

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